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BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) -- American Kristie Marano won her ninth World Wrestling Championships medal Sunday and teammates Sara McMann and Katie Downing also medaled on the last day of the tournament.
Marano, a two-time world champion competing at her ninth worlds, lost 3-0, 3-0 to defending champion Stank Zlateva of Bulgaria at 158.5 pounds. The silver tied the 28-year-old Marano with Bruce Baumgartner for the most medals won by an American wrestler at the world championships.
Nine medals that just speaks for itself," U.S. coach Terry Steiner said. "To be in this fire nine times and win nine medals is pretty amazing. The level of wrestling is improving, no doubt about it, and for her to continue to succeed at this level is very impressive."
McMann tied for bronze at 138.5 pounds and Downing also got bronze, at 147.5 pounds.
"I thought we competed better today no doubt about it," U.S. coach Terry Steiner said. "You have to let your work take over and let your reactions take over. We turned it into more battles and just wrestled."
The U.S. has qualified for the 2008 Olympics in three of the four Olympic weight classes for women. Marano, McMann and Stephanie Murata, who placed fifth at 105.5 pounds on Friday, have qualified in their weight classes for the Olympics by finishing among the top eight at the world championships. The U.S. will have three more chances to qualify at 121 pounds.
In the 138-5-pound final, Athens Olympic champion Kaori Icho of Japan won her fifth straight gold medal by defeating Yelena Shalygina of Ukraine.
At 147.5 pounds, Jing Ruixue of China, the 2005 silver medalist, beat Martine Dugrenier of Canada for her first major title.
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Erica Sharp captured bronze Saturday at the world wrestling championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, while fellow Canadian Brittanee Laverdure just missed out on a medal of her own.
Sharp, from Whitehorse, defeated Tatyana Bakatyuk of Kazakhstan 1-0, 3-2 in one of the two bronze-medal matches in the women's 51 kilogram freestyle division.
Anne-Catherine Deluntsch of France won the other bronze.
Hitomi Sakamoto of Japan beat Ren Xueceng of China 3-0, 2-0 in the gold-medal bout to claim her third consecutive world title.
Laverdure fell 1-0, 0-1, 6-1 to Dorj Narmandakh of Mongolia in a bronze-medal match in the 59 kg category.
Nataliya Synyshyn of Ukraine also nabbed a bronze.
Audrey Bokhashvili-Prieto of France, competing at the world championships for the first time, rallied to beat Stephanie Gross of Germany 0-2, 4-0, 6-0 for the gold.
In the 55-kg final, 2005 champion Saori Yoshida defeated Ida-Therese Karlsson of Sweden to bring Japan its third gold medal in the women's events in two days.
The championships wrap up Sunday with three more women's events.
